Merger alternative risks making bad situation worse

As opponents of improved higher education breathe a sigh of relief over the shift in strategy concerning Southern University New Orleans and the University of New Orleans, that they scored a victory does not diminish the upheaval facing the entire system in the state and their culpability in potentially making matters worse..

The eighth-of-a-loaf denouement now pursued by merger backers of simply shifting UNO into the University of Louisiana system and forging agreements between UNO and SUNO for resource-sharing has drawn sharply diverging views on the potential outcome. Some see this as a destructive umbilical cord that will sap UNO to keep SUNO performing at its abysmally low level. Others think, in a neo-functionalist way, that this will create tighter binds between the two that will dissolve SUNO resistance and facilitate a merger in just a few years, especially when SUNO faces reality.

And that reality is, pending the introduction of higher admission standards through 2012-14, that almost all freshmen who now qualified for admittance to and attend SUNO would be unable to do so.

Budget reality check needed for Jindal, Legislature

A bad week on budgetary matters for Gov. Bobby Jindal got worse when the Revenue Estimating Conference unexpectedly found itself approving a forecast that was not more but less, by $77 million, than those previously approved. This news, contrary to expectations voiced at the last REC meeting a couple of months ago, now means the Jindal Administration and the Legislature will have to grapple with a hole nearly $300 million greater than envisioned in the Administration’s initial budget.

Only Tuesday did the dominoes began falling and quickly. Then, the House Appropriations Committee decided to remove two contingent sources of funds, $86 million from the sales of prisons and $92 million by channeling money from the Millennium Trust Fund to fund Taylor Opportunity Program for Scholars grants. The former would require legislation that the administration has ceased to back actively, while the latter depends on an affirmative legislative vote and one from the people no earlier than October, months after the new fiscal year’s start.

In part, this budgetary strategy was somewhat reckless by the Jindal Administration because its appropriations language did not really address from where monies to make up for the lack of funds if the contingencies didn’t come through. For example, on p. 166 of HB 1 (as originally):

Crybaby Gallot puts campaign interests over people's

And so, as a budget deficit needs final resolution, flood waters run rampant, and the wisdom of extensive tax cuts emerges as an issue, the great debate heats up over that burning issue of the day on which the fate of the state hangs, whether Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, of south Asian origins, appoints enough non-whites to spots in state government.

Statistics show that 10.6 percent of all appointees by the Republican have been blacks, while 32 percent statewide identified black as a single race for the 2010 Census. Other non-whites he appointed to the tune of 2.4 percent when other single-race identifiers, including Hispanics, totaled 6.4 percent statewide. Thus, whites got 87 percent of appointments in a state where identifying as single-race whites were 62.6 percent of the population.

Releasing this information prompted the Democrat chairman of the House Governmental and Affairs Committee, state Rep. Rick Gallot, to take the pacifier out of his mouth

LA income tax repeals practical, desirable in near term

While some can’t move beyond simplistic bromides concerning the issue, whether to eliminate over time personal and corporate income taxes in Louisiana deserves a serious, analytical response – conclusions showing that given other changes the former is a reasonable goal in the near future, and the latter can be realized in the present.

For fiscal year 2009-10, the state reported $2.24 billion in collections for the individual income tax, and $435 million for the corporate income tax. Note that the former in just two years fell about a billion dollars, and the other over a quarter billion. State government did not bolt and padlock its doors in the interim, thereby demonstrating that large cuts can be made without any significant reductions in the level and quality of service. As such, “replacing” revenues “lost” by termination of these taxes need not be a policy outcome of the change, but let’s assume this in the analysis going forward.

The corporate tax figure certainly is in reach almost immediately, although structural changes needed would have to happen over the next year so this could go into effect starting Jul. 1, 2012.

Another disaster brings new set of political questions

Time to get out of the way of rising water headed into the area roughly between the Atchafalaya and Mississippi Rivers, and whatever flooding occurs in the next couple of weeks raises three political questions for Louisiana state politics going forward.

First, how much relative blame will state government get for the fact that as many as 25,000 people may get washed out of house and home and perhaps thousands of businesses ranging from farms to highly technology-dependent firms could find themselves under water? Technically, there should be none because the state has nothing to do with the decision that was controlled by the federal government, and the Army Corps of Engineers in particular (which may help redeem the ACE in the eyes of those around New Orleans but create an entire new set of complainers in the Atchafalaya Basin).

But, a lot of people won’t realize this so the logical lightning rod would be Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Electoral bills redundant, subvert majority will

While talk about changing the way America elects its president waxes and wanes, in a policy sense in Louisiana this year a serious effort has been launched to do this courtesy of HB 388 by state Rep. Nickie Monica and SB 126 by state Sen. Joe McPherson. As it is, these efforts turn out to be a case of not needing new laws to effect desired change.

These bills would make the state a party to a compact among states that pledge their electoral votes would go to the winner of the national popular vote, which would go into effect whenever states with enough electoral votes ratified the measure, regardless of how the vote turned out in their respective states. This would create an end run around the U.S. Constitution, as Art. II Sec. 1, modified by the  12^th and 23^rd Amendments, sets up the procedure where, as known today, the Electoral College selects (except in cases of lack of majority vote) the president and vice president.

Proponents of the idea argue that the present system of people voting for other people who vote officially for these officers confuses the electorate, subverts the will the majority in the historically rare instances (two) where the national popular vote winner does not win a majority in the College, and leads to candidates concentrating campaigning on only a handful of states of assumed competitive states. Opponents who support the current system argue neglect of many states, especially rural ones, would increase even more as candidates would concentrate their efforts of urban areas and the largest states where the biggest vote hauls exist.

Improvement helped by Pastorek hopefully to continue

The polarizing Paul Pastorek, for now state superintendent of education in Louisiana, shortly will leave the building. He also will leave the state’s elementary and secondary education system better off and with promise that necessary reforms may continue under his successor.

Many in the system, frankly, hated Pastorek’s guts. That’s because he broke the mold – a mold of professional educrats and politicians who for decades through their fealty to mediocrity, trendiness, politics, patronage, and good-old-boy/girl networks consistently delivered an educational product over which any self-aware Louisianan should have blanched with shame. Year after year the state scraped the bottom of the educational barrel while these figures kept finding every excuse imaginable for their poor performance, how anything but the most incremental change was  doomed to failure, they claimed, when they themselves spectacularly and persistently failed students, families, and taxpayers.

And they caterwauled as Pastorek kept the momentum going with reform efforts first implemented a decade before his arrival – although he had played an important role in them as a member of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education – and continued to expand on them, backed most of his tenure by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Early merger votes show advocates must step up lobbying

The House version of the bill to merge Southern University New Orleans and the University of New Orleans, HB 537 by Speaker Jim Tucker, is over its first two hurdles and they portend a razor-close vote in the House. But even that may not be enough for it to succeed.

First, the bill marched through the House Education Committee, composed of nine Republicans and seven Democrats, of which three of the latter are black. Here, the bill faced essentially three votes to be passed out with the committee’s recommendation. All but one member voted consistently on all three, where all Republicans voted to advance the bill with the committee’s recommendation, and all Democrats the opposite, except for state Rep. Rickey Hardy who voted at first to pass out the bill without a recommendation but then voted against shelving it and then for passing it out with a recommendation. One Democrat, state Rep. James Armes, was absent.

Then, as by the rules, it hit the House Appropriations Committee, which in terms of voting members is comprised of 15 Republicans and nine Democrats, of which three are black. Here, it survived a motion to defer and then was passed with the committee’s recommendation. All Republicans voted against the first and for the second motion along with two white Democrats, while Democrats voted the opposite although Armes also was absent along with state Rep. Bernard LeBas, and state Rep. Gary Smith voted affirmative on both.

LA Democrat resurgence hampered by misdiagnosis

Naturally, and what explains entirely their party’s fading significance in Louisiana, leading state Democrats and their fellow travelers have no clue as to why they have become the minority party in the state, possibly permanently. Allow me to assist them in their understanding.

The legacy media finally are starting to notice the profound shift in demographics in both the base and in the elected officials among Louisiana Democrats, and one such outlet went to a number of individuals to ask how the party had gotten to where it is and what it could do about it. Most whiffed entirely, believing in a “magic bullet” candidacy, that if you could just find a “moderate” candidate that could appeal to whites and blacks on issues, then problems would be solved.

To believe this shows no understanding of why Democrats prospered in the state, nor its political history and culture.

Paper takes credibility hit by its response to error

You can learn from your political enemies, a lesson apparently lost on the Baton Rouge Advocate, as indicated after it disastrously inserted itself into the issue that recently managed to make both its objects and commentators look foolish – proof of citizenship of political officials.

When compromising information about Sen. David Vitter’s personal life came out which impugned his credibility, he admitted unspecified behavior contrary to what he stated beliefs were before it worked its way into public, asked for forgiveness from whoever, and accurately stated that would be the last time he would refer to the issue, which linked him to prostitution services. That forgiveness was forthcoming from voters, who thought it more important that he represented them well on the issues than his making a mistake on a matter unrelated to his service in office.

Were the editorial writers and editors at the Advocate so capable at introspection. State Rep. Alan Seabaugh introduced HB 561 for this legislative session, which would require presidential candidates to demonstrate proof of qualifications to run for office on Louisiana’s ballot. Currently, not even the procedure used to determine whether candidates for state or local office qualify, challenging their candidacies for a short period after qualification ends, is in place to ensure the integrity of the process. Subsequently, when asked about, the Gov. Bobby Jindal Administration said that if the bill passed the Legislature, he’d sign it.

This set off the Advocate’s editorial page. Dropping into its typical mode that believes self-righteous indignation adequately substitutes for reasoned analysis, an Apr. 22 editorial accused Jindal by his assent to sign of trying to politicize the issue (calling it in the headline “bigotry”) – with absolutely no proof nor with any attempt to parse the constitutional aspects of it (an excellent analysis of the ideology and hypocrisy of the Advocate on this account may be found here), or even gave any hint of any critical thinking about the issue on its part.

Still, finding and replicating liberal boilerplate without any independent analysis that may demonstrate the vacuity of the message doesn’t make the message automatically suspect – if the writers aren’t going to go to the trouble of a rigorous search for the truth of something, readers and other fora may do it. But when signs appear that such rigor was sacrificed out of ignorance, ideology, or both, that strips the message of its credibility.

And that’s what happened, when the Advocate, no doubt wishing it could avoid this, tattled on itself through publishing an Apr. 27 letter from the Jindal Administration pointing out it had created a fictional middle name for Jindal – implying either its writers played fast and loose with facts in order to make a political slur, according to the writer chief of staff Timmy Teepell, and/or they weren’t very competent writers to make a basic error about a very well-known political figure.

When busted, we know what Vitter did. In the same situation, the Advocate eschewed that response and doubled down. Deliciously for its senders, the letter arrived to the newspaper before Pres. Barack Obama, after years of oddly allowing the issue to fester, released his long form birth certificate, on the exact day of the publishing of Teepell’s letter where he offered to release Jindal’s to the paper. This got a public apology out of the Advocate’s Executive Editor Carl Redman and a promise to remove the phantom name from the online version of the editorial.

But since then, the Advocate and Redman have tried to erase or ignore the issue they unintentionally created, over the credibility and believability of its analysis of Jindal, where it’s pretty clear in the general tone and overall selectivity of coverage it loathes him. Go to the online editorial and it has been changed, but, contrary to good journalistic practice, there is no indicator of a correction of error in fact (for example, see here) from the original online publication. If all one ever knew of the incident came from reading that one piece online you’d never know it happened, unless you stumbled onto the letter dated five days later.

Also, unfortunately for the newspaper, the story got legs. Apparently, the New Orleans Times-Picayune (and don’t think that new outlets don’t like to tweak their rivals in these kinds of situations) decided to take up Teepell on his offer, got a Jindal certificate, and ran it with a story about the implications a bill Vitter was backing with similarities to Seabaugh’s would have for Jindal – creating a neat way to bring up the Advocate’s faux pas. In turn, a wire service went for its own angle on the error. When asked subsequently about the incident, Redman’s responded, “I think the point of the editorial was that the Indian American governor of Louisiana should not be worried about people's origins and birthplaces.”

Besides earning him, for its audacity, twittering and muffled laughter behind his back at the next party he attends with the chattering classes, that response displays misrepresentation and calls into question of whether Redman actually read it. The editorial did not claim Jindal ought not to be inquiring about people’s birthplaces, but clearly accused of Jindal creating a political issue based upon what it defined as “bigotry.” But to admit that might resurrect the charges Teepell made that the Advocate was pursuing its own form of bigotry.

That the paper seems eager to distance itself from its original message, an unconvincing one at best, only lends credence to the interpretation it does so because it fears the editorial too nakedly puts on parade its animus towards Jindal, magnified because it so well facilitated the issuance of the letter to point out that. A simple retraction without explanation and willingness to admit error online would not have damaged its credibility, already questioned by many who read in the manner exhorted by the name of this blog, in coverage of and opining about Louisiana politics.